Depopulation: should it be our valentines theme?

Throughout my life, overpopulation and the resulting climate crisis has been a looming worry. At school I remember our geography teacher wondering if China was being bold on population control in a way the rest of the world could learn from.

But today we’re hearing all about depopulation. Only last week McKinsey put out a report flagging low birth rates and the risk of:

💵 economic slow down,

❌ broken social contracts,

🚓 too many dependents / the end of retirement as we know it now.

So this week I invited causal PhD mathematician Chris Oldnall to ask whether we should be worried about overpopulation or depopulation. Or whether we’d be better off focusing our minds on something else entirely… 💕

Interested in your views on this and whether AI and tech may balance out the impact.

Next week is half-term, wishing you a good one if you celebrate such things.

Christine